1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electric oven toaster and more particularly to a simplified control mechanism for such an oven toaster.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,684,861 to Harold A. DeRemer, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, there is disclosed an arrangement for controlling operation of an oven toaster. A main switch 40 is provided for controlling energization of heating elements 22, 23, 24 and 25, and a heat-up/cool-down bimetal toaster timer 82 is provided for actuating a solenoid 132 at the end of a toast cycle to operate the latching mechanism in order to open the main switch to deenergize the electric heating elements. As shown more particularly in FIG. 3 of the patent, a manually operable push-button lever 60-154 may be moved downwardly from an off position illustrated in FIG. 3, to a toast position illustrated in FIG. 4, in order to move the main switch 40 to its closed position. During this movement, a cam 162 is rotated in a clockwise direction about its pivot 164 by a drive pin 160 which is fixed to and moves downwardly with the push-button lever 60-154. Rotation of the cam 162 forces a detent lug 166 out of an off notch 169 against the force of a spring 314 to position the detent lug on a raised toast cam surface 167 of the rotatable cam 162. This results in a downward motion of lever 71-73 to cause a downward movement of the pivot 75 for lever 72-78. Downward movement of the pivot 75 closes the switch contact 48-51 to energize the heating elements to toast a slice of bread.
Downward movement of the lever 154 also starts a toast timer. Downward movement of lever 154 moves its lug 152 into a latch slot 150 of lever 146 to pivot the lever 146 in a counterclockwise direction about pivot pin 148. Counterclockwise movement of lever 146 causes a generally rearward movement of lugs 144 and 206 which are attached to the lower portion of lever 146. Lug 144 cooperates with a latch notch 142 which is formed in a solenoid lever 88-140, and rearward movement of the lug 144 on the lower surface of lever 140 allows the lug 144 to slide rearwardly until it is positioned within the notch 142. At that time, further rearward movement is restricted by the rear surface of the notch.
During this rearward movement of the lug 144 on the lower surface of lever 140 a solenoid spring urges the solenoid lever 88-140 in a counterclockwise direction about its pivot 344. Thus, when the pin 144 reaches the notch 142, the entire solenoid lever 88-140 will have been pivoted in a counterclockwise direction against the solenoid spring to move the lug 144 into notch 142. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 4, the latch notch 142 holds the latch lever 146 which in turn holds the lug pin 152 of lever 320 to hold the primary manual setting lever 154 in its downward post position against the force of a solenoid spring and spring 158 during the entire toasting cycle.
In the co-pending application of Robert E. Keim, Ser. No. 752,629, filed Dec. 20, 1976 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,658 and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, the latch lever 90 and other parts of the oven toaster have been modified in order to permit the manual push-button lever 60-154 to be moved upwardly to open the main switch contacts while the door is in its closed position, but is nevertheless correlated to the door so that the main switch is also open when the door is open.
My invention is concerned with such oven toaster control mechanisms, and more particularly, to an improved simplified control mechanism wherein a single, manually operable lever is positioned between a toaster switch and a toast timer for controlling operation of the oven toaster.